


fruits that you don't know and yet can eat

by sternenrotz



Series: broken hearts hurt but they make us strong (queer horror verse) [20]
Category: The Horrors (Band)
Genre: Agender Character, Coffee Shops, F/F, Future Fic, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Nonbinary Character, Other, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 17:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6205084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternenrotz/pseuds/sternenrotz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh and Fari go out for coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fruits that you don't know and yet can eat

**Author's Note:**

> titled after "Lichtarbeiter" by Nena.
> 
> set in December 2017. Josh doesn't want to label her gender identity, but as far as this fic goes, uses she/her pronouns. Fari is agender, she/her, and dropped the S from her name at some point prior to this fic. Tom is everyone's token cisgender friend.

Josh always feels exhausted after the hour's over. Fari’s sitting in the waiting room tonight, and she puts away the magazine she was only pretending to read in the first place as soon as Josh clicks the door of the office shut behind her.

“Hey Bird.”

“Hey.”

Fari's on their her to wrap an arm around Josh’s shoulders and kiss her forehead pretty much as soon as they’re close enough to do so. Her skin smells fresh like the air in a chilly pine forest, still with the cold from outside sticking to it.

“Laura's not coming out tonight?”

“No, no, it's… we said goodbye inside, I cut it short, so.”

Josh’s therapist is called Laura. She’s about the same age, maybe a little older, and she’s got springy curls and straight white teeth. She smiles a lot, maybe too much for someone in her line of work, and she insists Josh call her by her first name. Josh knows she’s got two sons and a husband, and that she studied in Cambridge and opened her office in Camden Town four years ago.

Fari and Laura know each other, of course. Well, of course they know _of_ each other. Fari was the one who helped Josh find a therapist online in the first place, and Laura knows Fari as Josh's partner. Even if Josh’s not sure if that's truly what their relationship is, _partners_. They've met a few times before or after Josh's appointments, and Josh would rather have it if they hadn't.

“That bad, huh?” Fari asks.

Josh simply shrugs. When Fari helps her into her coat, Josh wraps herself in it and doesn't have the energy to protest. She does up the first three buttons, as far down as it'll close.

They don't speak when they get the elevator down to the ground floor, and not when they walk out into the street either. It's been raining all day, rain that turned into fine, powdery snowflakes after the dark fell. Josh wrinkles her nose. What little slush on the pavement that hasn't melted away crunches under the soles of her boots.

“So,” Fari says, finally, when they get to where Josh parked her truck.

“So,” Josh says back, and she fumbles her key from her purse to unlock the doors.

Fari doesn't drive, too many nerves to even consider learning, so Josh appreciates the gesture that she took the bus to come pick her up all the more. She climbs up into the driver's seat, and she twists herself into position carefully to make sure the steering wheel doesn't get in the way of her belly. Maybe it's how the coat falls around it where she can't button it anymore, or maybe it's the striped dress she's wearing, the horizontal black-and-white stretched out. Either way, Josh feels comically huge today, bloated with hot air and feelings.

“Okay?” Fari asks from her shotgun seat.

“Okay,” Josh says back when she slots the key into the ignition. She lets the motor roar a few times before she kicks the stick shift into drive and pulls out into the street. “Just not sure how much longer I'll be actually able to fit behind the wheel.”

Fari laughs.

Josh got the truck as a gift from her parents when she graduated from uni. Now that she's too pregnant to bother with the stress of taking the bus or the tube, and now that she's about to move out of the city, she supposes she finally found a reason to use it. Even if… well.

“D'you want to drive right home?” Fari asks.

Josh shrugs. “I guess. Yeah.”

They stop at a zebra crossing to let a horde of schoolchildren pass, and Josh unties her hair from the low ponytail she had it pulled into. She shakes out her head before she presses down onto the accelerator and continues driving down the high street.

“I'm not really dressed to go out either way.”

“No, you… you look fine, really.” Fari coughs and leans back in her seat, and she says, “I was just thinking we should get coffee.”

Josh shrugs a second time when she signals to turn the corner. “What about Rachel?”

“What about her,” Fari says back in her stupid deadpan voice. “I already said we might take a while, so. Just in case you felt any need to discuss things.”

Josh really, genuinely, does hate her. After Fari and Rachel got married, she moved into their flat, after she realised she couldn't possibly do the pregnancy on her own. The actual wedding was a subdued courthouse ceremony followed by dinner at a pub they both liked, only Fari and Rachel and their closest friends. Josh honestly doesn't remember much of how the reception went.

Josh says, “Fuck off,” and gives them a smirk.

Her lips feel too waxy like she's wearing too much lipstick again, but she's sure that's just her pregnant nerves jacking up the sensation. Maybe a hot drink would be good after all, even if she's all ballooned up and washed out.

She says, “I guess.”

Fari laughs at her.

“Where d'you want to go, then?”

Fari shrugs. “Starbucks.”

“You're not serious.”

“Costa Coffee?”

Josh huffs out a breath. She checks her makeup in the rearview mirror, just to make sure it's only her nerves playing tricks on her. “Starbucks it is.”

She turns another corner to get to where she knows the nearest Starbucks is. Fari turns up the radio, which is still set to BBC 4. A man with a soothing voice blabs on about life and death, and outside, crowds of holiday shoppers pass by on the pavements, foreign with the neon light from the Christmas decorations. The frozen road sloshes under the tyres, but the air inside the car is barren quiet. Josh twists her too-waxy lips into her mouth and focusses on the traffic.

“You mind if I have a fag?” Fari asks eventually when the lull gets too much.

It effectively scares Josh up, even if she knows she hasn't smoked in years. “You realise I'm pregnant, right?”

“Just riling you up.” Fari laughs. She presses the button on the centre console to roll down the window, and a flash of cold air streams in.

“Piss off.” Josh's not sure if she truly means it that way.

Fari simply laughs again. “So what did you and Laura talk about, today?”

“I don't know,” Josh says back. “The usual.” Fari knows very well what _the usual_ means, so she doesn't elaborate. “Mostly body image stuff today.”

Fari makes an affirming noise and nods in the corner of her eye.

“She asked me if I ever thought about getting a reduction.” Josh hums when she brakes at a red light, and she says, “Not a full-scale top surgery, just lipo and some reconstructive work.”

“Yeah.” Fari plays with the switch of the window some more, until Josh reaches out one hand to swat her away.

“And?” she asks. “Have you?”

Josh shrugs. “I guess. It's one thing to say, _I hate my tits, I want them lopped off_ , when they're achy and too big, and it's another thing to go the whole way and have them taken out if your whole fucked-up self image hinges on having tits.”

“Yeah, I guess, it's…” Fari trails off. “I get it.”

Josh instantly believes she does. “Laura says I could get part of it paid by the NHS, with the back pains, and she'll write me a letter of recommendation to say it's necessary for my emotional well being if I choose it, so.” And she shrugs.

Fari hums. She shuffles in her seat, too cramped to comfortably fit her legs, and the material of her coat rustles against the quiet car. Josh watches her fiddle with her fingers, twisting one ring around.

Finally, Fari coughs. “I want my coffee.”

Josh makes a noise in accord. She can’t make out what the man on the radio is saying.

Only a couple hundred feet from the coffee shop is a vacant parking space, and Josh pulls right into it. Outside is colder than she remembered when Fari opens the door to help her climb from the truck. The skin on her face burns as soon as the breeze cuts into it.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Josh says back. She locks the car before they start walking.

“Your face looked weird.”

“Yeah, 'cause it's fucking cold.” Josh rubs her hands against each other and sniffs.

“D'you want my gloves?”

“No, I'm… I'm good.” Maybe she should’ve brought her own gloves, and a scarf and hat, too. Her halfway-done coat and the woollen socks she's wearing over her tights only do so much. “You need to stop being chivalrous. It's so _heteronormative_.”

Fari snorts out a laugh. “You do realise neither of us is hetero _or_ normative, right.”

“That's not even a word.”

“Sure it's a word.” Fari holds out her arm to link it with Josh’s, and she continues, “I hope you know I only bother with this because you're literally pregnant.”

“Now you remember,” Josh says, and she sticks her tongue out.

“You're a brat.”

Fari leans down to kiss her before she can continue her string of banter, the way she always does when she wants to shut her up without actually saying it. Josh only hates it a little.

The inside of the coffee shop is warm like a big dry womb, although Josh's not sure that's a metaphor she wants to use. She orders their drinks at the counter, a hot chocolate with caramel for her and a cup of black coffee with whipped cream on top for Fari. When the barista asks, she gives their names, even if he inevitably pronounces it as _Ferry_ when their order is called out.

They sit upstairs, and Josh snags them a table by the window with a big couch she can sprawl on after peeling her coat off. Fari takes her coat off in turn when she plants herself in one of the armchairs, legs crossed dainty at the ankle.

“Can you pass me my drink?”

“Yeah, here.”

Josh accepts the cup when Fari hands it over, still too hot to sip but just right to warm her fingers on. She inhales the sugary-sweet aroma that rises above the crown of whipped cream and caramel drizzle.

“You could've just said _Faris_ when they asked my name.”

Fari uses one of the little silver teaspoons to scrape off the very top of the cream before she stirs the remains of it into her coffee. Her brow is furrowed, but it only almost looks like concentration.

“Sorry.”

Josh adjusts herself on the couch and spreads her legs as wide as she can to let the bump of her belly sit comfortably. Her ankles feel too fat in her socks, even if it's the stretchiest pair she owns and even if the boots she's wearing are clunky Docs with wide legs. She contorts to slip a thumb into the band at the top of one sock, but looking at Fari in contrast alone makes her feel twice as bloated.

“I wasn't thinking, really,” she says, which isn’t exactly an excuse. “He was just a barista.” That’s not an excuse, either. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, but he’s still a man. And he was staring.”

Fari still looks effortlessly elegant in her seat even when her face and hair combine into a strange thundercloud. She brings her cup up all the way to her mouth to take her first sip, and Josh does the same. The chocolate’s still too hot in her mouth, a creamy burn that scalds her tongue just right.

“Yeah, sorry,” Josh finally says. “Won’t do it again.”

“Stop thinking about it.”

Josh hates coffee shops. She sips her drink a second time, but it doesn’t settle her pumping heart in her throat. Probably just nerves again, stupid pregnant nerves. The silence fills with the easy listening pop cover from the speaker system, and Josh slips her pointer finger into the whipped cream to scoop it straight into her mouth. The mere thought of the sandwiches downstairs makes her belly churn more than it usually does.

“What did you say we were going to have for dinner tonight?”

Fari shrugs and slurps out a noise. Of course there's no way she could use her words like a normal person, but Josh immediately recognises it’s the hormones that make her much more irritable to how obnoxious of a person Fari is.

“What was that?” she asks.

“I don't _know_.” Fari takes a sip of her disgusting whipped-cream-black-coffee and fidgets. “Rach said she's not in the mood for cooking, so I was probably going to make rice and veg or something simple like that.”

“ _Rice and veg_ ,” Josh repeats. “You know we might as well just order in Pizza Express if you won't feed me.”

“You're disgusting,” Fari says in that stupid matter-of-fact tone she has.

“You drink black coffee with whipped cream,” Josh shoots back. “I'm eating for two.”

She pets her belly where it juts out furthest and stretches the stripes the most, and she pouts.

Fari says, “Fine.”

“Fine, what?”

“We’ll get you some Pizza Express.”

Fari takes a slow sip of her drink, and Josh looks away. Only a tiny bit of whipped cream is left floating on top of her hot chocolate, so little it’s not worth using her fingers or even her mouth for. At least the drink has cooled down enough to comfortably drink, which she does.

“Bird,” Josh finally says. “I'm so hungry I want to die.”

“Yeah.”

Josh really, truly, definitely hates Fari for insisting on coffees and then not letting the both of them leave, and for being too vague and obtuse to actually tell her the reason.

“Let's go home and order in a hundred dough balls.”

“Say that again,” Fari orders.

“Dough balls.”

For some stupid reason, Fari laughs at her over that. Josh dreads that she’s sitting too far away for her to actually kick her shin, and the moment turns quiet and tender for a second.

“Tom called this morning when you were still asleep.”

Josh’s heart does a big jump in her chest cavity when Fari says it, and Laura’s voice in her head immediately recognises it as fight-or-flight response. She realises it’s strange in the same instant, considering there’s no reason for Tom to not call.

After a few split seconds that feel way too long, Josh asks, “What did he want?”

“Nothing. He just asked about you, how you're feeling. How the baby's coming along, you know?”

“Yeah.” Josh's hand splays over her belly before she continues. “What did you tell him?”

“What was I supposed to tell him?” Fari asks back, but from the monotone of her voice, it's hard to tell whether it's meant to be a question. “I told him you're seeing a therapist now, to sort out your mental health and to look after you when the baby's there.”

Even with the yellow coffee shop light and the fact that Fari’s skin doesn't flush to begin with, Josh can see her blushing.

“And that the ultrasounds and DNA test all came out fine. I told him you're going to have a happy, healthy baby.”

“That's what you said to him?” Josh asks.

“Nothing more and nothing less. I said, _She's going to have a happy, healthy baby_ ,” Fari repeats.

“Okay.” Josh sits up, her position lounged across the sofa suddenly uncomfortable.

“That bad?” Fari asks again. From that tone in her voice, she already knows and doesn't truly expect an answer.

“It's complicated,” Josh says back. She closes her hands around her mug once again, suddenly aware that they’ve gone clammy.

The last time she saw Tom in person was at the wedding reception. That day, her nerves ramped her anxiety up so high that she spent several hours between a couch and the bathroom while Dilys rubbed her back and passed her tissues, and maybe that wasn’t only Tom’s fault, but he’s easy to push the blame on. After Josh packed her bags and left her flat to stay with Fari and Rachel, she stopped texting him first and answering his messages.

“He's been weirdly in love with me for years now,” she says to keep Fari from posing any more questions.

What she doesn't expect is for them to say, “I did know that.”

Josh quirks her brow. Fari sits there matter-of-fact with their monotone matter-of-fact expression on their face, like they _actually_ knew and didn't just say that to be dry or sarcastic or whichever.

“I just figured from the way he looks at you that he is. I could've been wrong.”

Josh simply shrugs.

“I thought it was one of those things where it's not mutual but you both just ignore it.”

“Like you and Dilys.”

“We don’t talk about that,” Fari cuts in.

“I mean, it is,” Josh says to get away from that interjection. “It was.” She stops to sip her coffee once more, and she says, “I really thought he calmed down after he got a girlfriend…”

“A partner,” Fari corrects her.

“Whichever.”

Josh shifts and pulls her coat around her shoulders again. Even with the shape of her bloated body hidden from Fari and from herself, she feels uncomfortably exposed having this conversation, the same feeling of exposure she gets talking to Laura. Not that this is a topic the two of them have touched upon.

“Everything just changed when I said I wanted to try for a baby, and now he thinks I do want him after all.”

“Did he say anything like that?”

“No, it's…” Josh fidgets with her fingers on her mug. She can tell Fari's watching her. “He just acts like he's going to be a dad and I'm carrying _his_ child that we're going to raise together. Like, he thinks it's so much more of a big deal.”

Fari makes a huff that could be a laugh or a sound of understanding. Josh's not going to question it.

“Why'd you ask him in the first place? To knock you up?”

“Gross,” Josh says. “Well, it's… first it's that stupid promise I made him, I guess.”

“That's years ago,” Fari says.

“Still counts.” Josh tilts her head at an angle, so she can hide at least part of her face in the strands of hair, and she says, “I don't go back on promises.”

“Of course you don't,” Fari says back. She gives Josh that stupid grin she has, and Josh's sure she could kill Fari for all those times she gave her _that_ grin.

“Berk.” Josh kicks out one leg to remind her she's only a foot too far away to actually kick her shin. She says, “I always wanted someone who looks like me to father my child. To make sure my kid looks really like me.”

She realises how silly it sounds as soon as she said it out loud, but Fari only gives her a tiny echo of a laugh and nods.

“I know it’s not a big resemblance, but we’ve got the same hair and eye colour, at least. Big mouth and big nose. And I like Tom, it's not that…”

Josh worries her bottom lip between her teeth while she tries to find the words for what she's going to say next. She sips her woefully uncaffeinated drink.

“I want a fag.”

Fari opens her mouth, undoubtedly to make some deadpan response about how she's literally pregnant.

Before she can make it, Josh already says, “I _know_.”

Fari snorts out a short laugh.

“As a friend and bandmate.” Josh lets her hair fall across her face and away with a tilt of her head once again, and she adds, “And I love his dick.”

“Gross,” Fari expectedly says.

Josh shushes her.

Fari sips her coffee once again, and her eyes wander to the group of teenage kids sitting one table away. Finally, she says, “I hate Starbucks.”

Josh laughs at the same moment that she does, just a short, hollow laugh. Then, she realises.

“Did you bring me here so I wouldn't make a scene when you tell me Tom called?”

“What?” Fari asks back, before they seem to realise what Josh asked them. “I figured you'd take it better if I bought you a hot chocolate beforehand.”

Josh simply nods and shrugs her shoulders in acknowledgement.

“I didn't think you'd make a scene, I was just worried about your reaction with the hormones. Maybe it'd soften the blow if I told you here and not at home.”

Josh's first thought is that's a really stupid reasoning.

Her second thought is, _I could crash the car into a wall on the way home now that you've said that_.

_I could roll out of the driver's door and into traffic and have both mine and the baby's spines snapped by a lorry._

Her fourth thought is, _We're literally on the first floor right now_.

She doesn’t truly want to say or do any of those things, but they're in her brain before she can blink them away. Instead, she says, “Didn’t work too well, now did it?”

“Yeah.” Fari looks at her like that's all she has to say on that topic. “Do you want to go home now?”

“I guess.”

Fari helps Josh up from the sofa once again and helps her into her coat properly. They hold hands when they walk down the stairs and out to the car, and Fari helps Josh climb into the driver’s seat, too. Neither of them speak when Josh pulls out of the parking space, but when she throws a glance over, Fari is focussing intently on her face.

“You’re alright now,” she says. Josh’s almost sure the lack of inflection is deliberate for once. “Right?”

“I guess,” Josh says once again. She wants to keep holding Fari’s hand, but not when she has to navigate traffic like this. Her insides feel full and heavy besides the literal fullness of having a baby inside.

Finally, they approach a crossing and the light switches to red, and Josh returns to chewing on her lip. She’s going to get lipstick staining her teeth at this rate, but she can’t bring herself to look directly at Fari.

“I guess I should apologise to you,” she says. “Just in general for everything I never apologised for.” She’s going to cry this time. “I’m sorry, that’s stupid. Hormones are stupid.”

Josh’s eyes flit towards the rear view mirror, the red light outside, anywhere but Fari. She reflexively wipes her eyes on the back of her hand. When she grasps the stick shift again, Fari’s hand covers hers.

“See, that’s why I’m not getting on them,” Fari says, deadpan as ever.

“Good. Don’t get pregnant, either.”

“I won’t.”

Josh looks over at the red light again, then back at Fari. She wants to laugh, but she’s not sure if she can. At least the noise that comes out instead doesn’t sound much like it.

“Are you okay?” Fari asks again.

“I don’t know,” Josh says back.

Fari’s hand is warm on top of hers, and the light is still red. In the mirror, no long line of cars is waiting behind them. When Fari pecks her lips, Josh wants to cry all over again.

“Let’s go home,” she whispers, if only to hear it herself.


End file.
